Emperor of Austria, Apostolic
King of Hungary,
King of Bohemia from 1848 until 1916

Early life

Franz Joseph was born in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna,
the oldest son of Archduke Franz Karl (the younger son of
Emperor Franz), and his wife Princess Sophie of Bavaria. Because
his uncle, from 1835 the Emperor Ferdinand, was weak-minded, and
his father unambitious and retiring, the young Archduke "Franzl"
was brought up by his mother as a future Emperor with emphasis
on devotion, responsibility and diligence.

Franzl came to idolize his grandfather, der
Gute Kaiser Franz, who had died shortly before his fifth birthday, as
the ideal monarch. At the age of 13 young Archduke Franz started a
career as a colonel in the Austrian army. From that point onward, his
fashion was dictated by army style and for the rest of his life he
normally wore the uniform of a junior officer.

Franz Joseph was soon joined by three younger brothers - Archduke
Ferdinand Maximilian (born 1832, the future Emperor Maximilian of Mexico);
Archduke Karl Ludwig (born 1833), and Archduke Ludwig Viktor (born
1842), but a sister, Maria Anna (born 1835), died young, at the age of
four.

Following the resignation of the Chancellor Prince
Metternich during the Revolutions of 1848, the young Archduke, who it
was widely expected would soon succeed his uncle on the throne, was
appointed Governor of Bohemia on 6 April, but never took up the post.
Instead, Franz was sent to the front in Italy, joining Field Marshal
Radetzky on campaign on 29 April, receiving his baptism of fire on 5 May
at Santa Lucia. By all accounts he handled his first military experience
calmly and with dignity. Around the same time, the Imperial Family was
fleeing revolutionary Vienna for the calmer setting of Innsbruck, in the
Tyrol. Soon, the Archduke was called back from Italy, joining the rest
of his family at Innsbruck by mid-June. It was at Innsbruck at this time
that Franz Joseph first met his cousin Elisabeth, Duchess in Bavaria,
his future bride, then a girl of ten, but apparently the meeting made
little impact. Following victory over the Italians at Custoza in late
July, the court felt safe to return to Vienna, and Franz Joseph
travelled with them. But within a few months Vienna again appeared
unsafe, and in September the court left again, this time for Olmütz in
Moravia. By now, Prince Windischgrätz, the influential military
commander in Bohemia, was determined to see the young Archduke soon put
onto the throne. It was thought that a new ruler would not be bound by
the oaths to respect constitutional government to which Ferdinand had
been forced to agree, and that it was necessary to find a young,
energetic emperor to replace the kindly, but mentally unfit Emperor. It
was thus at Olmütz on 2 December that, by the abdication of his uncle
Ferdinand and the renunciation of his father, the mild-mannered Franz
Karl, Franz Joseph succeeded as Emperor of Austria. It was at this time
that he first became known by his second as well as his first given name.
The name "Franz Joseph" was chosen deliberately to bring back memories
of the new Emperor's great-grand-uncle, Emperor Joseph II, remembered as
a modernizing reformer.

Imperial absolutism, 1848–1860

Under the guidance of the new prime minister Prince
Schwarzenberg, the new emperor at first pursued a cautious course,
granting a constitution in early 1849. At the same time, military
campaigns were necessary against the Hungarians, who had rebelled
against Habsburg central authority under the name of their ancient
liberties. Franz Joseph was also almost immediately faced with a renewal
of the fighting in Italy, with King Charles Albert of Sardinia taking
advantage of setbacks in Hungary to resume the war in March 1849. Soon,
though, the military tide began to turn in favor of Franz Joseph and the
Austrian whitecoats. Almost immediately, Charles Albert was decisively
beaten by Radetzky at Novara, and forced both to sue for peace and to
abdicate his throne. In Hungary, the situation was more grave and
Austrian defeat was quite possible. Franz Joseph, sensing a need to
secure his right to rule sought help from a reactionary Russia. With
this Russian aid the Hungarian revolution was crushed by late summer of
1849. With order now restored throughout the Empire, Franz Joseph felt
free to go back on the constitutional concessions he had made,
especially as the Austrian parliament, meeting at Kremsier, had behaved,
in the young Emperor's view, abominably. The 1849 constitution was
suspended, and a policy of absolutist centralism was established, guided
by the Minister of the Interior, Alexander Bach.

The next few years saw the seeming recovery of Austria's position on the
international scene following the near disasters of 1848–1849. Under
Schwarzenberg's guidance, Austria was able to stymie Prussian scheming
to create a new German Federation under Prussian leadership, excluding
Austria. After Schwarzenberg's premature death in 1852, he could not be
replaced by statesmen of equal stature, and the Emperor effectively took
over himself as prime minister.

“The highest imperial family”;
photograph by Ludwig Angerer, 1859. Significantly there is only one
photograph where Elisabeth is shown together with her family and her
children. Pictured are from left to right: Elisabeth with the young
Rudolf on her lap, Gisela, Archduchess Sophie as well as Archduke
Franz Karl. Standing behind from left to right Franz Joseph,
Ferdinand Max (the later Emperor of Mexico), his wife Charlotte,
Franz Joseph’s youngest brother, Ludwig Viktor, as well as Karl
Ludwig. Unlike Franz Joseph, Elisabeth is not once photographed with
her children or one of her children. Pictures of the imperial family
are mostly photomontages in order to communicate the impression of a
“normal” family life to the public.

Assassination attempt in 1853

On February 18, 1853, the Emperor survived an
assassination attempt by Hungarian nationalist János Libényi. The
emperor was taking a stroll with one of his officers Maximilian Karl
Lamoral Graf O’Donnell von Tyrconnell on a city-bastion, when Libényi
approached him. He immediately struck the emperor from behind with a
knife straight at the neck. Franz Joseph almost always wore a uniform,
which had a high collar that almost completely enclosed the neck. It so
happened that the collar of his uniform was made out of very sturdy
material. Even though the Emperor was wounded and bleeding, this collar
saved his life. Count O'Donnell (descendant of the Irish noble dynasty
O'Donnell of Tyrconnell struck Libényi down with his sabre.
O'Donnell, hitherto only a Count by virtue of his Irish nobility, was
thereafter made a Count of the Habsburg Empire, conferred with the
Commander's Cross of the Royal Order of Leopold, and his customary
O'Donnell arms were augmented by the initials and shield of the ducal
House of Austria, with additionally the double-headed eagle of the
Empire. These arms are emblazoned on the portico of no. 2 Mirabel Platz
in Salzburg, where O'Donnell built his residence thereafter. Another
witness who happened to be nearby, the butcher Joseph Ettenreich,
quickly overwhelmed Libényi.

For his deed he was later elevated to
nobility by the Emperor and became Joseph von Ettenreich. Libényi was
subsequently put on trial and condemned to death for attempted regicide.
He was executed on the Simmeringer Haide. After the unsuccessful attack
the Emperor's brother Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph, the later Emperor of
Mexico, called upon Europe's Royal families for donations to a new
church on the site of the attack. The church was to be a votive offering
for the rescue of the Emperor. It is located on Ringstraße in the
district of Alsergrund close to the University of Vienna, and is known
as the Votivkirche

Although in public life the Emperor was the
unquestioned director of affairs, in his private life his formidable
mother still had a crucial influence. Believing it necessary that the
Emperor should soon marry and produce heirs, she hoped to match Franz
Joseph with her sister Ludovika's eldest daughter, Helene ("Nené"), four
years the Emperor's junior. However, instead, the Emperor became
besotted with Nené's younger sister, Elisabeth ("Sisi"), a girl of
sixteen, and insisted on marrying her instead. Sophie, despite some
misgivings about her niece's appropriateness as an imperial consort,
acquiesced, and in 1854 the young couple were married.

Emperor Franz Joseph and
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 1908.

Their married
life was not happy: not only could Sisi never really adapt herself to
the court and always had disagreements with the Royal Family, but their
first daughter Sophie died as an infant, while the only son, Crown
Prince Rudolf died, allegedly by suicide in 1889, in the infamous
Mayerling episode with his young mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera. The
Empress herself was stabbed to death by an Italian anarchist in 1898;
Franz Joseph never fully recovered from the loss. According to the
future Empress-Consort Zita of Bourbon-Parma, he usually told his
relatives "You'll never know how important she was for me" or, according
to some sources, "She will never know how much I loved her" (although
there is no definite proof he actually said this).

Emperor Franz
Joseph.
Image, 1915.

Emperor Franz
Joseph.
Painting by Heinrich Wassmuth,
1915.

The 1850s witnessed several failures of Austrian external policy - the
Crimean War and break-up with Russia, Austro-Sardinian War of 1859
against armies of the House of Savoy, and Napoleon III. The setbacks
continued in the 1860s with Austro-Prussian War of 1866. It resulted in
Austrian-Hungarian Dualism in 1867.

Franz Joseph built a villa named Villa Schratt in Bad Ischl for his
mistress, Katharina Schratt, an actress with whom he had a long-standing
relationship which was, to a certain degree, tolerated by Sissi.

In 1914 the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was
assassinated in Sarajevo, leading to World War I.

Emperor Franz Joseph died in 1916, aged 86, in the middle of the war.
After the defeat in World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy dissolved.

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